Twitter Dashboard the lowdown

First of all you need to go to dashboard.twitter.com to get started. Once on there just hit the Try Twitter Dashboard link.

You will then be given 6 options and asked to describe your business and how many employees you have. Select the category (much like when setting up a Facebook page) that fits your business and how many employees. You will then see a similar screen…

From here select the About You tab to edit the terms you want to monitor across Twitter.

You will notice by default both your username and business name has been added, this is essential as you want to monitor who is talking about you!

My tip is to expand this list by adding specific hashtags or phrases (keywords if you like) so that you can also follow mentions for industry related terms as well as other phrases that are related to you and your business.

You can also add Negative Keywords which will help filter out phrases that may be used that could be mistaken for your business.

TIP: I would add your company URL in there too, just in case people mention you or your content and mistakenly forget to tag your Twitter username or business.

Twitter Mentions in one place

The new Twitter Dashboard allows you to monitor all the mentions in one place now. This, in my opinion, is crucial to monitor what is being said about you, your business, your products or services. Whether it is good or bad, you need to respond quickly and this now helps you do just that!

Those of you who already use a third-party app, such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social, will know that you can already do this when using their platform, so have Twitter just created a threat to these apps?

Just click on the About You tab and you will now see a filtered stream featuring every tweet that mentions you, your brand, business or selected phrases you have just added. What this feature allows you to do is filter out all the irrelevant noise on Twitter and focus on those terms you added and engage much quicker and easier than before.

Monitor specific phrases and terms

This also allows you to monitor certain keywords as we mentioned above, but it also allows you to keep an eye on specific hashtags related to your industry, for example, a conference or event that you are organising or attending.

Remember: To add more terms and phrases, just click on the pencil icon next to the About You tab

Schedule your Tweets

Now is this the big threat to those third-party apps?

The major benefit of using Hootsuite, Buffer, Post Planner or Sprout Social was that you can easily and quickly schedule your Tweets, in some cases 6 months in advance. Now that Twitter offers this feature does it mean you can bin Hootsuite and the like?

In my opinion, no. Not just yet!

Yes, you can schedule your Tweets now but there is no option to reschedule. For me this is crucial as tweeting just once is no good, it will get lost in the fast-moving nature of the Twitter world so you need to reschedule your Tweets to go out again and again. This is where the third-party apps come in to their own, but, the reason I said “Not yet” is because who is to say that Twitter will not add this function in the future.

To schedule a Tweet using the new dashboard just hit the Create tab

Type in your Tweet as you usually do but then instead of hitting Tweet you need to click the dropdown arrow beside it and select Schedule Tweet

Then all you have to do is select the time and date that you wish your Tweet to go out in to Twittersphere!

Once you have selected those you just hit Schedule Tweet

Twitter also offers a Calendar view so that you can see at a glance exactly what is scheduled and when. Just click on Show Calendar to bring up the calendar view.

Analytics

You can now see a detailed breakdown of your Tweets and your Twitter account over a defined period.

To see these important stats just hit the Analytics tab

The new advanced Analytics will show you:

Number of Tweets sent out

Media Tweets

Replies

Mentions

Profile Visits

As with any business it is important to monitor your marketing efforts and this allows you to measure just how well you are doing on Twitter and how you can improve.

The big improvement with Twitter Analytics is that you can now see the activity for any individual Tweet at a glance.

You just need to select the Tweets tab and you will now see a list of Tweets sent out, you can organise these by impressions, replies, Retweets and Likes.

This is valuable info as you can easily determine what content is performing and engaging and what content is not. This could save you shed loads of time in creating future Tweets, Tweets that are going to work for you.

Summary

So what are my thoughts?

This is a great improvement to Twitter as far as I am concerned. It is now offering you a valuable tool to help you manage and monitor your account from one simple dashboard.

Is this the end of Hootsuite and co?

If you are using Twitter just for your business then yes I believe you now have everything you need right here. If you are using other platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc then using a third-party platform still makes sense as this will allow you to manage your various platforms in one place.

For social media managers who are managing multiple clients accounts a third-party platform is still essential in my view.

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Social Media Consultant in Norwich, Norfolk, UK, experienced in helping and training businesses to improve their online presence and performance. Developer and presenter of many Social Media courses since 2008 and now a Social Media consultant helping business owners 1-2-1 on how to set-up, use and optimise their Social Media to help empower their search ranking.